


Thicker Than Water

by dear_monday



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alcoholism, Alternate universe - Mafia, Depression, Infidelity, M/M, Paranoia, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-08 17:29:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_monday/pseuds/dear_monday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank used to be able to count the number of times he's killed for the Family on the fingers of one hand. That was years ago, but he'll always remember the first one. Gerard was daydreaming, and Frank had only just learnt how to use a gun. Frank was twelve years old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thicker Than Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Verbyna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbyna/gifts).



Frank used to be able to count the number of times he's killed for the Ways on the fingers of one hand. That was years ago, but he'll always remember the first one. Gerard was daydreaming, and Frank had only just learnt how to use a gun. The hitman was small, mean-looking, quiet as a cat and complacent because Gerard was so young. He came in through the window, and Frank blew his brains out. The impact sent him flying backwards, the stain on the expensive wallpaper huge and dark and ugly. Frank remembers the kick of the gun in his hands, the stink of blood and piss that hung around the body afterwards. But most of all, he remembers Gerard's face, eyes huge, lips parted, his undivided attention shining on Frank like a spotlight.

 

Frank was twelve years old.

 

 

*

 

 

Mikey's name doesn't carry the same weight as Gerard's. Gerard is the first son, the jackpot, always in the centre of somebody's crosshairs. Mikey doesn't have his brother's caprice or his mile-wide nasty streak. He doesn't have the kind of paranoia that makes his brother turn on people for the slightest imagined betrayal.

 

What Mikey _does_ have is Gerard, in a way that no one else does. Mikey is the one who calms Gerard down when he wakes up kicking and screaming at night terrors, the one who talks to him when he's falling-down drunk and talking about saving someone else the trouble and slitting his own wrists.

 

Frank's been protecting Gerard for as long as he can remember, but he knows that if Gerard finally turns on him too one day, or if it ever comes down to Mikey's word against his, he'll be the one who winds up in the gutter with a knife between his shoulderblades.

 

Frank wants that kind of unshakeable trust from Gerard like he's never wanted anything else.

 

 

*

 

 

Frank knows how it goes. One day, Gerard will be strategically married off to the one of the daughters of another branch of the Family. It's one big game of chess with guns and knives and secrets, where Gerard is both King and time bomb. There's no doubting that he's quite the prize, but he's unpredictable and hell-bent on self-destruction, and he's already ticking. Frank has been a part of the game for long enough to know how it's played.

 

Mikey might be married off too, but he isn't the Family's firstborn. He doesn't _matter_ like Gerard does. Unless Frank fails and Gerard doesn't survive until then, Mikey has a shred of freedom that Gerard would sell his soul for. Not that it matters - Gerard's first and only loyalty is to the Family. There's a lot of weight resting on his shoulders, a lot of stones in his pockets.

 

Frank knows all of this, but it doesn't stop him thinking about how Gerard's mouth would feel when he gets himself off.

 

 

*

 

 

Frank is Mikey's first. Mikey is all hard lines and sharp angles where Gerard has softness that clings to his hips, his thighs, his belly. But Mikey has Gerard's eyes, and that's enough. Frank has to bite his tongue to stop the wrong name slipping out when he comes.

 

It doesn't matter. He's sure Mikey knows anyway.

 

 

*

 

 

Gerard tells Frank about his experiences with the kind of girls who charge by the hour in agonizing, pornographic detail. He talks about the way they taste, the sounds they make, the slick, hot feel of their cunts. Something bitter and possessive stirs into life in Frank's gut. He's devoted so much of his life to Gerard, he deserves at least this much in return. He hates every single one of those fucking whores for having what should have been his.

 

And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, Gerard discovers cock. It's a whole new world of frustration for Frank. Listening to Gerard talk about how good it feels to get fucked _hard_ is pure, undiluted torture, made all the worse by the way his pupils are blown and his breath is coming fast. Frank knows Gerard is hard in his dress slacks just from talking about it, but he isn't allowed to touch. He has to sit by Gerard's side in meetings about firearm prices and getting wanted criminals out of the country and which cops are in the Family's pocket, knowing Gerard could be thinking about sucking cock, getting bent over and fucked. At night he's plagued by dreams of Gerard on his knees, on his back, writhing and begging.

 

It's almost enough to distract him from doing his job.

 

 

*

 

 

"Who's going to be there tonight?" Gerard is still damp from the shower Frank made him take, wrapped in a vast white towel and staring unseeingly out of the window.

 

Frank looks up from adjusting his shoulder holster. "Uh, the Antonellis and some of the Gadaletas. Why?"

 

He's had the guest list for this dinner memorized for months. Escape routes have been planned, every possible threat has been noted and neutralized, and Frank is carrying enough concealed weaponry to sink a battleship.

 

Gerard makes an apathetic, noncommittal noise. "The fucking bastards are gonna make me sit next to that Antonelli girl, she's dull as shit."

 

Frank takes a deep, calming breath. He isn't going to get anywhere with Gerard if he loses his temper now. "There's nothing I can do about that," he says, making sure his switchblade isn't going to fall out of his sleeve halfway through the fish course.

 

"I bet there is." Gerard turns away from the window to face Frank, his mouth curling up into a sly smile. He lets the towel slip a little off his shoulder, exposing pale skin that Frank wants to bite. He takes another step towards Frank. "I bet," he says softly, "you could get me out of it, if you really wanted to."

 

"Stop it."

 

Gerard lets the towel slip a little further. "C'mon, I'll make you a deal. Whatever you want."

 

" _Stop it_."

 

"Think about it, anything you want. You wanna fuck me? Bend me over for you? Make me ride your dick, get me down on my hands and knees?"

 

Frank looks away so Gerard won't see his eyes darkening. "Get dressed," he says shortly. "You've got ten minutes."

 

 

*

 

 

Frank starts to think of Mikey as a kind of voodoo doll - he leaves bruises and scratch marks on Mikey as if that's going to transfer the claim they represent onto Gerard instead. Gerard is drinking more and more, becoming reclusive and impossible to talk to for everyone except Mikey and (sometimes) Frank. Mr. and Mrs. Way are worried. Gerard is supposed to be the heir to everything they've built. The people who matter in the outside world think Gerard is closeting himself away while the Family plan something big. Frank keeps his ear to the ground, he knows they've got their main rivals running scared. The rumors spread out from the Way mansion like poisonous mushrooms, creeping and insidious, putting down roots in the fertile earth of people's worst-case imaginings.

 

Only a select inner circle know the truth. Gerard's a suicidal, alcoholic fuck-up who's getting more and more unstable by the day as the cracks in his sanity start to show. His paranoia has reached a twitchy, shrieking peak, making him turn on allies he can't afford to lose.

 

This time, Gerard is drunk out of his head, fluttering between sobbing like a baby and screaming his throat raw. Frank manages to pry the gun out of his hands and he goes limp, slumping against Frank and clinging desperately. Frank manhandles his dead weight into the bathroom and strips him out of the vomit-stained clothes that probably cost more than Frank makes in a month. Gerard fucking reeks, whimpering pathetically when Frank turns the hot water on him.

 

"Pull yourself together," Frank grits out, jerking back to avoid one of Gerard's flailing hands. "Jesus fucking Christ, you're acting like a spoilt child."

 

Gerard _stops_ , looking shocked as if Frank just slapped him. No one else speaks to him like that. Mikey worships the ground his big brother walks on, and no one else dares to.

 

"Maybe I am," Gerard slurs, and suddenly he looks so wretched that Frank feels almost cruel.

 

Gerard is a fucking disaster. The bitch of it is that Frank would still walk to the end of the earth for him if he asked.

 

 

*

 

 

The first time Frank and Gerard fuck, Gerard is drunk and sulking and behaving like the brat he is. Frank can't take it anymore. He takes it all out on Gerard - the frustration and the jealousy, and Gerard takes it all. Frank fucks him hard, pushing his face down into the mattress while Gerard moans into the sheets like a goddamn porn star. He rubs off against the expensive cotton, tensing around Frank when he comes, and Frank slams into him one more time before following him over the edge.

 

They don't talk afterwards. Frank puts his clothes back on and leaves Gerard spent and boneless on the bed, legs spread wide, Frank's come dripping out of him.

 

 

*

 

 

Frank goes back to Mikey. He feels fragile after Gerard's solid weight, and Frank is careful with him until Mikey hisses and tells him to stop holding back.

 

"You didn't for Gerard, did you?" he grunts. Frank takes him at his word and makes him fucking _scream_.

 

 

*

 

 

The rumors they've spread about Gerard gather speed, grow claws and teeth and come back to bite them. The attempts on Gerard's life are getting more and more frequent. Some of them are laughably desperate, others so well-planned that Frank barely manages to stop them in time. He moves into Gerard's bedroom, and then into Gerard's bed. Gerard fucks like he's trying to punish himself, never complaining no matter how hard Frank pushes him. Frank thinks it's the most unguarded he's ever seen him, maybe the most unguarded _anyone's_ ever seen him. He leaves bruises and glowing scratch marks all over Gerard, mapping and claiming his body. _Mine. Mine. Mine._

 

 

*

 

 

"I dream I'm him sometimes," Mikey says quietly, his voice low and guilty like a secret spilled into the dark. "Wake up and see his fuckin' face in the mirror."

 

Frank's breath catches, and he leans in a little without realizing he's doing it. "Yeah?"

 

Mikey looks him up and down, seeing the hungry look in his eyes, the faint flush in his cheeks.

 

"Yeah," he says. "You sick fuck."

 

"No sicker than you," says Frank, and Mikey doesn't deny it.

 

Gerard is losing his mind. Frank sleeps in his bed at night, and when Gerard locks himself in his suite with only booze for company, Frank turns back to Mikey.

 

It doesn't take a genius to see that something has to give.

 

 

*

 

 

And eventually, something does.

 

For all Gerard's talk about killing himself before anyone else could, Frank never thought for a minute that he'd actually do it.

 

 

*

 

 

Frank is fucked-up at the funeral, blind drunk in his best suit as they bury Gerard. Mikey stands next to him, his face a blank mask betrayed by his shaking hands. He won't shatter like Gerard did. If Gerard was a Molotov cocktail, a volatile mess barely contained by a fragile shell, then Mikey has unexpected steel in his bones. Mikey has Frank all to himself now, but his big brother is rotting away in a wooden box with a slab of cold stone over his head.

 

They fuck afterwards, both wanting to feel as close to Gerard as they can. It helps, a little, but it doesn't change the fact that he's gone. It was Frank's job to keep him alive, and he's failed. The Ieros have been looking after the Ways for generations, and now Frank's brought a decades-long reputation crashing down like a house of cards.

 

Really, Frank thinks, what it comes down to is that he could never protect Gerard from himself.

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Thicker Than Water](https://archiveofourown.org/works/447088) by [dear_monday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_monday/pseuds/dear_monday), [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins)




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